Copernicus previews SBIFF with a review of SAMSARA, sequel to BARAKA!!

Roger Ebert had this to say about BARAKA, which warmed by cold astronomer heart:

“If man sends another Voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be BARAKA. It uses no language, so needs no translation. It speaks in magnificent images, natural sounds, and music both composed and discovered. It regards our planet and the life upon it. It stands outside of historical time.... The restored 2008 Blu-ray is the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined... ‘Baraka’ by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player.”

Film fans, we are in luck, after 19 years, director Ron Fricke has produced a sequel, of sorts, to BARAKA, and that film is SAMSARA. One of the highlights of this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which starts Thursday, is the American premiere of SAMSARA on Feb. 1. I was lucky enough to catch it last year at the Toronto Film Festival, so in preparation for SBIFF, I’ll share my thoughts on SAMSARA.

If you aren’t familiar with BARAKA, you might know its ancestor, KOYAANISQATSI (Fricke was the cinematographer), or its sequels POWAQQATSI or NAQOYQATSI . They are nonnarrative films that pair music with short segments of stunning visuals that reveal something profound about humans, nature, technology, civilization, or how all intersect in the modern world. Think the nature scenes from TREE OF LIFE, the mind-boggling time-lapse shots from PLANET EARTH, or similar clips involving crowds of people, or city life. They are devoid of narrative, and set to music that’s just as beautiful. Philip Glass did the music to KOYAANISQATSI, and if you don’t own the soundtrack, you’ve no doubt heard parts of it (for example, in WATCHMEN, or its trailer), or heard its influence in the TRON LEGACY score by Daft Punk. Michael Stearns, who scored BARAKA, is back for SAMSARA, along with contributions from Marcello De Francisci and Lisa Gerrard.

Impressionistic in spirit, high definition in execution, SAMSARA is like the God’s-eye view of life on Earth, from the sublime to the staggering. A few examples of scenes: monks creating a mandala out of colored grains of sand, the boiling cauldrons of Yosemite, Balinese dancers, the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans, animals being processed in a factory farm, Petra, eerily humanoid robots, bizarre coffins, gleaners at a garbage dump, and thousands upon thousands of pilgrims at Mecca.

The title means something like “the ever turning wheel of life.” So the theme of birth, life, death, and rebirth repeats. As in its predecessors, you experience the individual scenes in SAMSARA essentially on an emotional level. But their juxtaposition brings to mind certain thoughts. We see a patient about to undergo plastic surgery nearly alongside meticulously sculpted latex human faces. We witness the goings-on in a factory slaughterhouse, and afterward, overweight diners gorging on their cheap calories. Tribes, guns, prisoners, and death, are shown, all on an epic scale. Nature and cities give us their best and worst.

This may strike some viewers as “preachy,” but that’s not how I saw it. For example, religion is a constantly recurring motif. I didn’t take the film as pushing religion, but more as a document of the human experience. And our way of life, and even our bodies, have been transformed by changes in our food production. Merely broaching some topics like these, even though they are not explicitly commented on, is seen as an unwelcome political act by some viewers. But any film that confronts the eternal is likely to stir unsettling thoughts. The overarching theme of changes in our lives due to technology, whether it is food production, airplanes, cars, or guns, have been a part of every film in this lineage. And with good reason -- films like SAMSARA can help us to reflect on massive shifts in life on our planet in ways few others can.

As you can imagine, creating a film so grand in scope was no easy task. It was shot in more than 20 countries over 4 and a half years. The filmmakers had to get clearances to shoot in all manner of sometimes-forbidden locations, and in some cases wait for just the right season or lunar phase. It was shot on 70mm, but digitally scanned to 8k resolution. In Toronto it was projected at 4k, a first for the Toronto Film Festival. If it is at all possible to see this film on a big screen in a state-of-the art theater, by all means go out of your way to do so. Even if you have to travel somewhere to see it that way, it is a hell of a lot easier than traveling the globe.

SAMSARA is easily one of the highlights of my moviegoing experiences last year. It may not have quite the same impact on audiences as some of its predecessors, but that’s only because we’ve seen some of this before. In that sense it is a true sequel -- you get what you liked from BARAKA, but bigger and better. As far as I’m concerned, I’d love to see an epic, trippy planet-orgy like SAMSARA every year. The world is a big place, and Ron Fricke and his team have only scratched the surface.

films mentioned here. It is an image of whirling dervishes, a sect of Muslims in a trance-like dancing state. I have tried to place this striking image, shot from above mostly, but cannot. I did not see the entire film, just this segment. But I always assumed it was from one of these films. Any help?
Also, yes, a re-make of Koyaanisqatsi, in 60fps 3d , would be breathtaking.. I imagine.

the word raises the supreme red flag for practicing Buddhists, and it sounds like this film understands the concept. Think more along the lines of 'chained to the wheel of life' than a happy dervish dance. Actually the original Conan had it right: Samsara is the wheel of woe. It is lust that keeps the wheel turning; and suffering that encourages one to free oneself from it.

...were in Baraka.
The same kind of sequence was also used in The Fall by Tarsem.
Baraka is one of my top 10 films.
Misunderstanding of the word "narrative", though, which Baraka clearly has: Nature, Man in harmony with Nature, Man against Nature, Man fucks up, Man has painful rebirth, Man reconnects with Nature again.
I could bang on about the difference between narrative, plot and story but, meh.

Zinc_chameleon,
Yeah, Samsara is a buddhist term. Baraka is pretty buddhist in its theme even if its subject matter is universal (other religions are included).
I think "chained to the wheel of life" or "wheel of woe"can lead to misunderstanding, though. Samsara means the continuous flow of birth, death and rebirth (in buddhism) - the cause of suffering comes from attachment to things in that flow as if they were not impermanent (which all things are). This is more subtle than "life is woe". Renouncing life will cause just as much suffering - the buddha first tried renunciation as well as hedonism and found both of them dissatisfactory. That's why buddhism is called the middle way. As Joseph Campbell said (paraphrased) "the trick is to find your centre from which to operate from, where you are motivated neither by fear or desire". That pretty much sums up buddhism, in my mind and also true freedom (how can you be free if you are the slave of your fears or desires?)

Remember when Fircke was suppost to do 70mm cinematography for Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis"?
Too bad that never happened.
Anyway, I'd love to see Ron Fricke lend his epic scope and sensiblities toward a narrative feature someday... maybe team him with Terrence Malick or Carrol Ballard. But then again, to corral Ron Fricke to the confines of such a small canvas may be a waiste of his unique talents.